In yesterday’s New York Times, Cornell University economist Robert H. Frank presents a myopic view of the purpose of education to argue–from the premise of a false dichotomy–that “skepticism about remote instruction’s future may be premature.”

To set the groundwork for his argument, Frank proposes:

Consider this thought experiment. Which would you choose: An online course delivered by one of the world’s most knowledgeable and charismatic instructors, supported by Pixar-class animators, award-winning documentary filmmakers and a team of in-person graduate teaching assistants? Or the same course taught in person by an average instructor reading from yellowed notes?

Not much of a choice. But, of course, Frank and I teach in different worlds. Maybe he and his colleagues at Cornell are prone to teach from yellowed notes, but that is not the experience I see among my community college colleagues.

Frank seems to view the role of education as promoting the stereotypical sage-on-a-stage who spews words at their students. A pre-packaged course with its Pixar-class animations might, as Frank argues, create an economy of scale because “Most of the costs of delivering remote courses are fixed, which means that costs per student fall sharply with volume.” For the educational institution, “expanding remote courses would be the hiring of local graduate teaching assistants.” Yet, education is more than merely getting as many students as possible to watch the same set of videos no matter how well those videos are produced.

I am not sure how long it would take to produce an online class such as the one that Frank envisions. But I do know that even Frank’s average professor with their yellowed notes has the potential for relevancy that cannot be delivered by Pixar-class graphics.

When I was preparing to teach nineteenth-century American history this semester, I modified the course so that it began with the 1793 yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia and ends with references to the 1918 flu pandemic. Additional course materials such as an explanation of why some Civil War soldiers glowed in the dark were added to continue a medical theme throughout the class. Over the past weekend, I revised the materials I presented remotely today to incorporate the demonstrations that have been taking place across the country during the past week; demonstrations that have some of their roots in Reconstruction.

Two weeks ago, a colleague modified the discussion on race that took place in their remote class last week so that it would incorporate issues of race and COVID-19. They could not have known that, a few days later when the discussion began, George Floyd would be murdered. But he was. And my colleague was able to quickly pivot so that their students could include those contemporary events as well. No course built with Pixar-class animations can hope to offer the relevancy that my colleagues and I bring to our students because pre-packaged courses cannot be revised to reflect events that are happening in real time.

At my college, the maximum class size is 31 students. And we don’t have graduate students whom we could hire to monitor a pre-packaged class. Nor would we want to do so. Our mission is to provide a transformative educational experience for our students. Such transformation requires engaged instruction. Pixar-class graphics might be engaging, but they do not provide the student/professor engagement that we offer at community colleges.

Frank might have some real insights about the potential commercialization of higher education after the pandemic; especially in terms of how corporations might try to market pre-designed courses. But he would be better served by recognizing that the role of educational institutions is not to provide cookie-cutter classes monitored by anyone but the professor who designed the course. Instead, our role is better exemplified by the strong community college faculty members who actively engage their students in class sizes small enough to allow them to personally interact with each of their students. Cramming as many students as possible into a single section is the antithesis of quality, transformation education that community colleges provide.

Maybe a more meaningful question for Frank to have asked is, “Which would you choose: A pre-packaged fully online class taught by a professor with whom you will have no contact but will be monitored by graduate students. The class will be offered by Cornell University at a cost $1,575 per credit hour. Or would you prefer a remote/online course designed by a faculty member with whom you will be actively engaged throughout the semester. The class will be offered by your local community college at a cost of $123 per credit hour.”

–Steven L. Berg, PhD

Photo Credit: “The Transformed Classroom” from Promoting Student Transformation at the Community College (HASTAC, 2020) which was released online for free.

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